What Could Have Been
by Sperare
Summary: Lana watches Superman while thinking about destiny and what could have been.


This is just a one shot fiction. I do have another longer story coming, but I'm trying something new by writing most to all of it before I post it. It shouldn't take longer than two weeks. Please read and review!

As something new if you have any ideas for stories that you'd like me to write, please send them to me. I may or may not write them, but I'd love some ideas!

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She watches him from her balcony: The hero of Metropolis. Her hero. Her Clark. He doesn't think that she knows and she's been very careful to keep it that way.

Things didn't work out the way they were supposed to. Destiny was cheated and for once she wished that things had gone the way they were destined to. Funny thing destiny is. You can't change it but sometimes things don't work out like they were meant to. But then are those things really destined to happen at all? Or is this just some delusion she is living with to make her feel better?

She had him once. It was the happiest time of her life. For a few glorious months she felt like her life was worth living; like she didn't have to present a façade to everyone she met. He opened her up and made her complete. He loved her for her.

But then things fell apart. She became angry with him for lying to her again and told him so. As he always had he just looked at her with his beautiful green eyes and avoided the question. She had thought there was someone else. If only she'd known then what she knew now.

They'd gone their separate ways. She'd gone back to Paris and he'd transferred to Met U. He gotten a degree in journalism and she'd begun to miss him and regret her hasty anger-filled decisons.

The last time they saw each other was at the funeral of their mutual best friend, Chloe Sullivan, who had been killed by his former best friend: Lex Luthor. They had barely exchanged greetings. Things had just been too bitter between them.

She'd stayed in Metropolis for a few days after the funeral. Lying awake in her motel room the night before her scheduled departure she had decided to go set things right. She'd gone to his apartment to talk.

When she'd gotten to his apartment the door had been open. She'd been about to go in when she heard voices from within; Angry voices-voices that she recognized. "You killed her, killed her in cold blood," Clark's voice accused.

"She knew too much."

"You're worse than your father now."

"There was a time that it would have killed me to hear those words from you, but that time is over."

"Going to kill me to then? You're the only one that knows how that would even try."

"For the sake of an old time friendship, no, I'm not."

"Then there's nothing left to say. Get out."

She heard someone exiting the apartment so she ducked behind the door. A few seconds later she saw Lex Luthor leave.

After he had gone around the corner she came out from behind the door and stepped inside the apartment. She stopped as if frozen when she saw Clark on the edge of the window.

To this very day she had no idea why she didn't scream for him not to jump, but it was almost as if her vocal cords were frozen. She watched him jump. Sprinting to the window, she looked out-and saw him flying away.

It was then that it all clicked for her. There hadn't been anyone else. The lies he told really had been to protect her, just as he had always said. He had been saving people, not cheating with someone else. She had lost the best thing she'd ever had for nothing-nothing at all.

She had gone back to Paris, too ashamed to face him. She hadn't stayed long. Something was calling her home. So home she came; home to Smallville.

She'd only been there a few months when "Superman" appeared on the scene. It was no mystery to her who it was. Once again she'd tried to get the guts to go talk to Clark. This time she headed to see him at his work place: The Daily Planet.

As soon as she walked into the office her first site was of him in a violent lip lock with of all people: Lois Lane. She couldn't believe it. The girl that had drove him up the wall. She remembered telling him that the best ones started out that way. How true those words rang now-And how much she wished she'd never uttered them. Can the words you say alter your destiny? Or was it your destiny to say them all along?

Either way she turned around and walked back out of the office. There was nothing left for her here and that was all her fault. If she'd only trusted him it could have been her kissing him. But because she'd been so prying, so untrusting, she'd never have him again. He belonged to Lois now.

She watched from afar as he continued to save people. She watched as he continued his relationship with Lois, finally proposing. She had never doubted that Lois would accept and she wasn't proved wrong.

The marriage of Clark Kent was announced the same day that Superman and Lex Luthor had a destructive battle in the middle of Metropolis. It had been a stalemate but only because when Superman had been injured and Lex had the opportunity to kill him he hadn't-something that shocked the city. Lex Luthor, all around cooperate barbarian and villain, had refrained from killing his arch enemy.

She knew why, but she knew that the real reason would never come to light. The fact that Lex Luthor couldn't kill his former best friend would never be known. Heck, she wouldn't have known if she hadn't walked in on their conversation in the apartment.

She saw Clark again when she was even in a deadly office fire and had been rescued by him, or rather Superman. She saw his eyes flicker when he saw her but they no longer held any of the burning desire for her that they once had. Now they were blank, almost regretful. Her time with him was in the past.

So now she watches him from her balcony. He's not really her Clark-only in her memories. Memories of a time now long past. A time when Chloe Sullivan still lived, was editor of the torch and both her and Clark's best friend. A time when Lex Luthor went to all lengths to protect his best farm boy friend. And a time when Lois Lane was still the girl that annoyed him and she, Lana Lang, was still the love of his life.

But that time is in the past now and she is left with only nostalgic memories to remind her about what could have been. What could have been, but what was not.


End file.
